BBC Learning English Words in the News 21st October 2011 Black Widow ‘won't work for freedom’ A few hours of work seems a small price to pay for a taste of liberty. But one of Italy's most infamous inmates, known as the Black Widow, has rejected an offer of work in exchange for limited freedom. She was jailed for 29 years in 1998. Mark Duff reports: Patrizia Reggiani once said she'd rather cry in a Rolls than be happy on a bicycle. She doesn't seem to have changed her mind. Dubbed the Black Widow after she was jailed for ordering the murder of her ex-husband, the heir to the Gucci family fortune, Ms Reggiani has spent most of the past 13 years at San Vittore prison in Milan. Judges had offered her the chance of day release, if she agreed to take a job outside the prison walls. But Ms Reggiani, who's 63, was having none of it. She'd never worked in her life, she told the judges, and she didn't intend to start now. Her trial in 1998 attracted worldwide interest. It had everything: a woman betrayed by the man she'd loved and the low-life murder of the heir to a multi-million dollar fashion fortune. For now, though, Patrizia Reggiani, who once complained that her allowance of more than US$630,000 a year wasn't enough to live on, will return to the comfort of her pet ferret and her plants in her cell at San Vittore. Mark Duff, BBC News, Milan Words in the News © British Broadcasting Corporation 2011 Page 1 of 2 bbclearningenglish.com Vocabulary and definitions she'd rather she would prefer dubbed given a name, usually by the media day release scheme that allows her to leave prison during daytime having none of it not accepting any of the terms offered intend plan betrayed by deceived by low-life not high-class complained expressed unhappiness about allowance amount of money received regularly from the person who financially supported her ferret long-bodied furry mammal More on Patrizia Reggiani: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3881031.stm Read and listen to the story and the vocabulary online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2011/10/111021_witn_black_widow.shtml Words in the News © British Broadcasting Corporation 2011 Page 2 of 2 bbclearningenglish.com